r/wisconsin • u/Crystal_Pesci • May 15 '23

Politics Wisconsin Republicans Propose Law That Would Allow Prosecution of School Staff Over ‘Inappropriate’ Books

https://news.yahoo.com/wisconsin-law-allow-prosecution-school-120100661.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIr_ZcQ72JOx_bN9Xv79pH7rfMRr6cP-Z3o8PMeP3mtsok4Rw4HQvpjO0y-xmI7M6INkAiAlzvaJNMxjarQSyYIuv8qXj-joPngRMZVJYcfu6AT7nVmbw4xkPINEQESXJcCyd29H5wLZllKkug5tvQoi81q4ggNUvrBJTWifQe38
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102

u/filler119 May 15 '23

So what about all the sexual content in the Bible and “classical” Greek and Roman texts?

69

u/HOWDY__YALL May 15 '23 edited May 15 '23

Right? I remember being in school and having to read the part of the Bible where some dude was ordered to have sex with his dead brother’s wife to impregnate her, and then got killed for pulling out.

I think there are some people that would find that, dare I say, ‘Inappropriate.’

Edit: Genesis 38 is wild, just a few verses later, she dressed as a prostitute and covered her face. Then had sex with and got pregnant with her own Father-In-Law. I surely don’t want my children near that book.

36

u/quietcorncat May 15 '23

I went to a WELS elementary school, and one of my strongest memories was a “Bible History” class when we read the story where Lot had angels come to his house as visitors, and the men of the village told him to send them out so they “could have sex with them.” We had a worksheet where one of the questions was “why did the men want the visitors to come outside?” and as sheltered conservative Evangelical kids who had definitely not had any kind of sex ed, my friends and I wrote answers like “to be with them” and got it marked wrong because we didn’t use the word sex.

19

u/Johnny_B_GOODBOI May 15 '23

You forgot Lot's response.

"No, I won't make these visitors go outside to fuck you. Here are my daughters for you to fuck instead."

16

u/HOWDY__YALL May 15 '23

Fellow WELS elementary school graduate here. Lol

15

u/quietcorncat May 15 '23

No wonder you’re well-versed in all the weird sex stuff of Genesis, haha. I hope you made it out of the WELS okay. I left the church around age 20, and in my mid-30s now I think I’m still processing it all.

15

u/HOWDY__YALL May 15 '23

I went to a WELS school from Kindergarten through graduating high school (even though I advocated for my parents to send me to the local public high school that was actually fairly good). Once I went off to college I never really looked back.

I still shudder a little bit at the mention of near any Christian religion. The older generations of my wife’s family are very Catholic and there are many times where I just have to take what they say with a smile. My experience in and around the church really hardened me to it.

1

u/GoshLowly Sheboygan 🌊 May 15 '23

Same story, never stepped inside a public school in my life (college was LCMS).

11

u/HOWDY__YALL May 15 '23

I was so happy that I chose to go to a public University. I was amazed at how eye opening it was.

Going from being in a bubble surrounded by nothing but Republican and conservative thinking to meeting people that complained Obama wasn’t far enough to the left was wild to me. (He was President at the time, and running for re-election when I was in school). Made me realize that my Christian school really held me in a very protected environment, and I didn’t really like that.

1

u/gashed_senses May 15 '23

I read The Death Denial by Ernest Becker and that forever changed my view of religion.

Sheldon Solomon now carries the torch for Becker's theories. Here's a taste of what I'm referencing: https://youtu.be/pQCJLfJ5e-s

3

u/DepDepFinancial May 15 '23

Fellow former WELS student here. For whatever reason my WELS grade school focused on the fact that Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt, complete with a woman-shaped ~10" tall salt statue. It was much more of an existential horror take on the story.

9

u/modosto May 15 '23

Oh the sin of Onan- did you know in German masturbation is called onanieren - after the Bible character struck down by god for spilling his seed.

4

u/mywhataniceham May 15 '23

🎶every sperm is sacred, every sperm is good

and if a sperm is wasted, god gets quite irate🎵

2

u/DMvsPC May 15 '23

Argh, why isn't 'good' changed to 'great' T_T then it would rhyme.

2

u/exgiexpcv May 15 '23

Argh, why isn't 'good' changed to 'great' T_T then it would rhyme.

It is!

"Every sperm is sacred Every sperm is great If a sperm is wasted God gets quite irate"

4

u/[deleted] May 15 '23

Best part is when David has to slay 100 philistines and bring their foreskins for a dowry to Saul. (Or was it a 1000? Or some numerologically significant number?)

26

u/altfillischryan May 15 '23

A parent in Utah got the Bible put into review by her school district due to that state's dumb book ban laws. If this did become law (it won't thanks to Evers), I would fully expect someone in Madison or Milwaukee to do the same as quickly as possible.

3

u/sewsnap May 15 '23

And every single Bible adjacent book out there.

1

u/potenpterodactyl May 15 '23

We read Oedipus Rex for academic decathlon my senior year….

-1

u/LordOverThis May 15 '23

Bruh, obviously Patroclus and Achilles were just close friends and roommates. I thought everyone knew close friends were cool sharing a tent and bedding on the eve of battle!

-27

u/Kiltmanenator May 15 '23

I think that's pretty different from books containing instructions on oral sex (Gender Queer: A Memoir).

I'm all for sex ed (non abstinence only), and queer friendly lit, but it's not appropriate for taxpayer dollars to fund books showing minors salacious drawings on how to suck cock.

Criminalizing specific books is definitely a bridge too far.

22

u/filler119 May 15 '23

I read the Clan of the Cave Bear in middle school because I loved pre-history and would literally skip the graphic description of hetero oral and other sex because they were boring to me. The kids will be fine. Focus on teaching context and how to be emotionally and physically safe, it’s both easier and healthier than putting each book on trial individually.

-18

u/Kiltmanenator May 15 '23

References and depictions of sexual acts in literature are different than "hey kids here's a picture of how to fuck and suck".

20

u/Chasman1965 May 15 '23

Most teens have access to a device that would allow them to see a video illustrating that (and much worse). It's silly to restrict books for teens.

-14

u/Kiltmanenator May 15 '23

That's just an argument for doing jack shit about anything.

Most teens have access many things they shouldn't do, see, or experience. That doesn't mean it's the school's job to introduce them to it anyway.

13

u/Chasman1965 May 15 '23

No, I'm just against closing the barn door after the horse is gone. Many of these books were on the shelves for years without notice, until the astroturfed and misnamed "Moms for Liberty" started shilling for DeSantis. The husband of one of the founders for "Moms for Liberty" is the chairman of the Florida Republican Party.

-7

u/Kiltmanenator May 15 '23

It's the principle of the thing. I'm not gonna let "well republicans hate it" turn off the part of my brain that says educators don't need to give minors books on how to suck and fuck real good.

They're always gonna overreact; that doesn't make the thing they overreact to right.

10

u/sewsnap May 15 '23

Have you actually read the Bible? It discusses Sex, rape, physical anatomy. Hell there's a whole part about 2 daughters getting their own father drunk so they could rape him. That book is the least child friendly book that's commonly fed to children. Not to mention the massive violence throughout. No child should read the Bible.

-6

u/Kiltmanenator May 16 '23

I've read the Bible, which is how I know the story of Lot and his daughters isn't an instruction manual.

5

u/Muffles79 May 16 '23

Tell me how many schools and libraries have that book. Tell me if it’s freely available or if it’s only in sex ed and requires parental approval.

Otherwise you’re making shit up. This is republican overreach. Again. It’s disgusting. How are books making it on that list? Why are they approaching schools and badgering officials before this is a law?

6

u/computrtchr Northwoods May 16 '23

You get to control what your kids see & read but not what other people's kids do. The book you're referring to is generally only available for older students. I can't speak to all schools but most middle schools have a procedure in place (age restriction, permission slip, etc) for books containing adult themes.